Marilla

Nothing says heymish like an African safari

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Last week Wex was asked to comment on New York Times journalist David Brooks' piece on his African safari vacation, and specifically on his use of the Yiddish word haimish (sic). Although he has no problem with Brooks' understanding of the word heymish (to give it the YIVO transliteration), Wex does have something to say...

Wex

Like a Cossack in a sukkeh

It must be this year’s yontoyvim, because it sure isn’t my fault. First I lose my position as gabbai for giving hagbeh to a trombenik on Rosh Hashana and now I’m stuck in England, watching rain filter through the roof of one of my in-law’s sukkes while being told, quietly but often, that the proper spelling of the Yiddish word for “rag” is shmatter and that I can leave if I don’t...

Wex

The Rosh Hashanah hero

I might be wrong, but I think that Rosh Hashana has made me a hero. I’m gabbai––a synagogue valet––at an orthodox shul in Toronto where I’m in charge of kibbudim, the distribution of such honors as opening the ark, being called to the Torah, and so on. On the second day of Rosh Hashanah this year, a candidate in the forthcoming provincial elections burst into shul with a police escort instead...

Wex

Helfn vi a toytn bankes

Along with the shone toyves that I’ve been sending out to friends and family this year, I’ve been receiving New Year’s cards of another kind from politicians and Jewish communal figures whom I’ve been peppering with what are best described as instructional letters and e-mails. These cards implore me to be sure to go to shul this year, in order to be sure to have a chance to gey shray khay ve-kayem,...

Wex

Veys ikh voos!

We’re into the month of Elul now, when we’re supposed to begin examining our deeds and telling the truth to God and ourselves. Contempt for the kind of b.s. that we use to justify our dodgier actions has given rise to one of the most remarkable, not to mention useful, of Yiddish phrases: veys ikh voos (literally, “I know what”; more literally, “know I what”). Uriel Weinreich, in his Modern...